September 10, 2009

Beach and Bikes and Bummed

Back home from the beach. It was cloudy and/or rained for pretty much the entire trip. Sigh. I have bad luck with vacations and weather. We rented bikes, and I biked 17 miles, which was amazing because it felt like nothing. I brought back my dad's bike, which I misremembered as being a standard mountain bike. It's not. It's a cruiser. With pedal brakes. It's fairly large and a bit unwieldy. I rode it to an event that my friend Kevin, the creator of Gay RVA, was having a few blocks away. I wonder if I can sell it and buy a decent used bike? My dad had bought it new, just a few months ago, but it already has some wear and tear on it and I doubt I can get near the cost of what it was.

In other news, nursing homes are just sad, sad places. No one should live like that. I've never been one to exclaim that if I ever get sick, I just want people to pull the plug, am not in general a fan of Do Not Resuscitate orders, and think one should try all possible to maintain life (after all, we only get one), but I don't want to live like that when I get old. It's not a life. My grandmother has Alzheimer's and it's a terrible, terrible existence. What are we doing to our fellow citizens when we just make them hold on to life when life is no good any longer? I will try not to launch into a Euthanasia speech, because people are afraid of that word (see also: abortion, socialism, condoms, feminism, queer), but there's gotta be a choice here. My grandmother fell in the bathroom for the SECOND TIME (Nursing home, get your act together), and now she's in the hospital because she has gotten sick and has another infection and isn't eating or drinking. I find this out as soon as I arrive home, 4 hours away from having seen her for 2 days.

It's good to be home though. I'm having some leftover wine and eating some dinner and going to meet some of the OMGWTFRVA crew out for Karaoke tonight. I don't have to work tomorrow, yay!